Family Art
These and the sub-pages were done just for the family and not published.
"A Typical Day in Mr. Meskin's Class: 1985"
This cartoon of Dad's has special meaning to me because I had asked him to do it ...and it's literally true. (You can enlarge it from the smaller image just below.)
I had been teaching High School English in the Bronx when we were told that we would have to accept students into our classes even though it would overcrowd the class. At that time, 1985, high school classes in NYC were limited to 34 students, in theory. We were further told that we could not refuse to accept any student until we had enough to form a new class. When asked how many that was, we were told "21," can you believe? That meant we could have a class of 55 "legally."
Soooo...I just kept accepting students until I had 44 in the class...with only 34 chairs. As you see, the kids had to sit on the floor and on the window-ledge heating unit.
This is exactly as it was, no joke. I think it stayed like that for a few weeks until they were finally moved out to a newly-formed class, even though by that time we were deep into the lessons.
I had been teaching High School English in the Bronx when we were told that we would have to accept students into our classes even though it would overcrowd the class. At that time, 1985, high school classes in NYC were limited to 34 students, in theory. We were further told that we could not refuse to accept any student until we had enough to form a new class. When asked how many that was, we were told "21," can you believe? That meant we could have a class of 55 "legally."
Soooo...I just kept accepting students until I had 44 in the class...with only 34 chairs. As you see, the kids had to sit on the floor and on the window-ledge heating unit.
This is exactly as it was, no joke. I think it stayed like that for a few weeks until they were finally moved out to a newly-formed class, even though by that time we were deep into the lessons.
